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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22676059">AstroZombies</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account'>orphan_account</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hollywood Undead (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Astro Zombies, Basically space zombies, Johnny Three is gonna put some zombies in the dirt, Jorel x Cats, Zombie AU, Zombie Apocalypse, lots and lots and lots of violence, lots of gore</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 18:21:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,128</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22676059</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>J-Dog and Johnny are the only remaining survivors in Hollywood of an astronomical zombie attack and are left to survive on their own after Deuce disappears, leaving J-Dog in a state of mild depression and paranoia.</p><p>* each of Jay’s journal entries will have an asterisk after them because idk how to italicize shit on here or if you even can *</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It's been a month since the world was taken over by the superior race of radioactive space zombies. Johnny’s started calling them astro zombies, I can't get behind that. We still haven't seen Deuce since week one, I don't like to think of what could have happened to him, but if I'm going to be honest he's probably dead by now, I don't think he'd be able to survive on his own with the conditions outside. Not that it matters anyways, they're going to nuke the planet soon to keep the plague from spreading to others. There was so much in life I regret not doing, but these past few weeks have been the most fun I've ever had, whacking the heads off the undead with one of my closest friends. There's still been no other sign of humanity, Johnny's told me to give up looking, he thinks we're the only two left in all of Hollywood.* </p><p>"Jay, stop writin' in your stupid ass journal for ten seconds, will ya?" Johnny punched the old boombox he had taken from the corner store when shit went down, it had been our only form of entertainment since. The smack to the side made the speakers crackle in and out, an old Beastie Boys song playing softly under the static from the CD he had previously popped inside. The smell of tobacco filled the small grocery store break room we had set up camp in as he lit a cigarette from one of his many salvaged boxes. I closed the battered book and set it and the pen aside, folding my hands in my lap as I sat on an old milk crate.<br/>
"It's cold" I noted with a shiver, turning my gaze to Johnny who was slouched over on top of the broken break room table as he flipped the beat to shit box of cigarettes over in his hands.<br/>
"Yeah, no shit," he growled, a cloud of cancerous smoke pushed out his lips and nose, "when is it not cold?" I pulled the sleeves of my blood-stained, black and white shirt before moving to hug my shoulders.<br/>
"Can I sleep next to you again tonight?" I asked, already knowing the answer I was about to receive, "I'm going to freeze."<br/>
"God, no, Jay," Johnny huffed, flicking the ashes off the end of his cigarette, "what are you? Gay?"<br/>
I frowned, shivering once more, the feeling of my teeth clattering together making me feel almost nauseous at the long night I was about to endure. There was no real way to keep warm in the night other than each other by now, especially when you're forced to sleep on a cold cement floor. It was always better when he let me sleep next to him, it wasn't particularly anything I wanted to personally partake in either, but it kept me from turning blue on the floor even if it was typically just a little. Johnny watched me shake for a moment before looking back to the floor, his leather boots scraping the surface lightly as he kicked his legs.<br/>
"I'll give you the blanket tonight, okay?" He hummed. Within the minute he was on his feet, plucking said wrecked blanket from our pile of things and stretching it out over my shoulders. He patted me on the back before grabbing his gun and stuffing it in his belt and covering it up with his white t-shirt that had since been stained with several different things in several different places.<br/>
"You get some sleep, I'm gonna go and try to find us more food, we're running out." He moved to walk towards the bolted door, but I called after him.<br/>
“Wait!” I blurted out, “don’t leave!”<br/>
“Why not?” He asked, waving his hands, “I’m pretty sure I can handle myself out there.”<br/>
“We don’t immediately need food, Johnny, we’ll be fine until morning,” I argued, pulling the ragged blanket closer to myself, Johnny glared at me, “you know they’re more active at night!”<br/>
“C’mon, Jay,” he chuckled lightly, “almost dying is all the fun of it.” I pondered the idea for a moment, we basically had nothing to live for at this point, I guess he was right, but I knew could never survive on my own.<br/>
“Then let me go with.”<br/>
“You should stay here, it’s not safe.”<br/>
“Oh, and what?” I puffed, “I can’t handle myself out there?” Johnny stood frozen for a moment, his hand reaching for the door handle. “What am I supposed to do if you fucking die?”<br/>
“We’re going to die anyways, we’re basically doomed at this point, you’ll be fine without me,” he waved it off.<br/>
“Then why can’t I go with?” I insisted, “we are a team, after all, partners in crime.” Johnny hit his lip before training his eyes in my own pleading ones. He quickly shaked his head before turning to open the door without another word. The second he turned the door handle, it was shoved harshly inwards, knocking him back with a loud exclamation. He reacted quick to the group of cold grey hands reaching out to claw at him as they invaded the small space, but fumbled with his tucked-in shirt to pull his gun. The sheer panic set in on his face as he glanced between their encroachment and me across the room. Without much thought I arose to my feet, grabbing the shot gun from where it rested, leaned up against the wall behind me. With a simple click of the safety and cock of the deadly machine, the flash, bang lit up the room, followed by another pump and more loud shots. The three figures dropped quickly, smoke pouring from the barrel as I pulled it down from my shoulder. The ringing in my ears and the smell of the combustion fired through the air tasted like victory and I looked over to see my companion on the floor, breathing just as heavy as I was, if not heavier.<br/>
“It’s not safe, huh?” Johnny turned his head down before scrambling to get back to his feet, not answering my words, “still want me to stay here?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. It's Taking All I Got Not To Give Up</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It almost feels like a waste of a planet, just getting rid of it like this. I don't even exactly know how we managed to get to this point, but everything changed quickly after the meteor hit in Sacramento. Most of the world's population (including a good portion of the zombies themselves) was gone within a week. Don't ask me how a meteorite turned the world into zombies because I simply don't know, and it seemed neither did the rest of the world. It was apparently something to do with the radioactivity of the crash that turned the surrounding citizens into brain-dead, flesh-hungry monsters. I don't buy it. Johnny said they might send out rescue shuttles to save the survivors, but I don't buy that either. This all is beginning to feel like a lost cause and I'm starting to think maybe I'm better off just putting a bullet in my brain. I hope Deuce is okay out there, wherever he is. *</p>
<p>We stopped at a broken-down gas station, I stood by, carrying the shotgun tucked under my arm, the blanket clinging to my shoulders once more. Johnny gathered all the canned and preserved foods, stacking them all up in on the counter. I personally picked apart an apple hand pie, standing guard near the door and shattered windows. It was the first food I'd had other than raw chicken tomato soup since last Friday. It was a little stale and dry, but it was the best thing I had eaten in a long time. <br/>"We're gonna have to find base somewhere else soon," he noted, looking upon the small stack of items, "this is one of the last places I know of where there's still good food." He turned to me, the setting sun illuminating his skin a mellow orange. <br/>"How do you s'pose we move all our shit?" I asked behind a mouthful of the old pastry. <br/>"Uh, by car, duh," he proclaimed, moving around the clerk's counter, "there's like, a bazillion abandoned cars, I'm sure we'll be able to find the keys to one of them." The rotting dead body behind the counter laid slouched up against the back wall. He must have been sitting there for weeks by now, insects flowing from every decomposing cavity in his body. Johnny reached up to the shelf where all the camels stood on display, careful to step around the corpse, sweeping them down from their spot and into his arms, knocking a good majority of them on the ground. He tossed me a pack, one that I was unable to catch with the number of things I already had on my hands, so it hit my leg and flopped to the ground. <br/>"God, where were your hands, dude!" he called out at me, setting the boxes down next to the cans on the counter before moving to pick up the ones that fell from his arms. <br/>"Occupied," I winced, kicking the box into the counter, "can we just get out of here, the dead people smell is making me queasy."<br/>The walk back was long, but with how quickly the sun set I was satisfied with not having to shoot, hit, or gash anything the entire time. It wasn't too soon until we were back at the base, I had taken all the hand pies with despite knowing I'd get just as tired of them as I was with the soup. I settled upon the cold concrete floor, using my few t-shirts as a pillow. I was thankful Johnny had given up the one blanket we had for me, but it was still awfully cold, I didn't know how he was able to deal with it as he did. I listened to him talk aimlessly over the sound of my teeth clattering. It was annoying the first few days we were stuck alone together, how much he talks and never shuts up, but this entire experience made us grow closer and I learned to put up with it and cherrypick the important bits. <br/>"It was kind of funny, you know?" He laid on the table, on his back staring up at the ceiling, letting a small laugh slip out, "a small tragedy, but everyone was ultimately fine in the end, never trusted the lot of them again." He rolled over, propping his head up with his elbow, moving his gaze towards me, "kind of sad, though." He was silent for another long moment, watching me shake against the ground before he spoke up. <br/>"You cold?" What kind of fucking question was that? That night was oddly exponentially cold, and it was obvious I was cold with how much I shivered. <br/>"Yeah, a little," I lied. Johnny frowned before turning away. <br/>"You'll be fine, we'll leave in the morning."<br/>The second the sun touched the horizon we were out on the streets again, searching every car. The streets were dark, the concretely stained with the blood of the many broken bodies discarded in the gutters. I kicked at a pebble on the side of the road, my hands in the pockets of my sweatpants. I wondered what it had been through, what it had seen of the disaster at hand.  I wondered how long all these people had been dead. We never came outside much, and we sure as hell never went this far, everything was so off-putting. Looking over the sea of radioactive cadavers was bad enough aside from the smell, but as I looked up and down the crowd, something caught my eye.<br/>A bright white stuck up from the cold grey of the others, moving along with the subtle breeze. I took a step or two closer, the item somehow piqued my interest. <br/>"Jay!" The sudden call made me jump and spin around to find Johnny hanging out of the window of a smashed in, white, pickup truck. He held the keys up before pulling himself back into the cab, starting the engine with an ecstatic shout at its ability to start before sticking his head back out. "Get in the car, motherfucker!" I laughed slightly to myself before walking around the side of the truck. I reached for the handle but was stopped in my tracks by an abrupt noise behind me. My hand went to my gun as I turned back, scanning the area but finding nothing. I continued trying to get in the car, finally getting the door open, but there was another noise yet again from behind me. <br/>"Is that-" <br/>"A cat!" I cut Johnny off when I squealed like a schoolgirl, immediately falling to my knees, calling the animal over. <br/>"Jorel what are you..." <br/>suddenly a small black and white kitten, shaking, climbed its way out of the rubble, calling for me again. It was in a bad state, as I clicked my tongue at it, I could see it struggling to move on one paw. It couldn't have been more than a few months old, not a kitten, but not quite a fully grown cat. When it reached my feet, it stared up at me for a moment before rubbing up against my lower leg. It had several deep gashes in its fur, scrapes, and cuts.<br/>"How long have you been here, Bud?" I cooed, reaching down to scratch behind its ear. <br/>"Dude, don't touch that thing, it could be diseased," he barked at me as I picked the kitten up under its arms, pulling it to my chest. <br/>"Dude, look at this little fuzzy thing," I whined, holding the cat out to face him, "you can't just leave 'em behind!" The small animal yawned slightly as I began to pet it again. <br/>"Jay what the fuck!" <br/>"But she's so tiny, look at her little paws and her little nose and her baby teeth and she's so soft," I noted, scratching behind the cat's ear. I wasn't even sure if it was female, but it hurt me to refer to it as an object with 'it', she's a living creature, "and she's clearly been hurt." I tried to hold up the paw that I noticed had been a little off before, but she pulled back quickly. <br/>"Jay-" <br/>"Johnny please!" I cried, holding her closer, the disgust that crossed over his face made me smile a little, "it'll make me ever so happy!" <br/>"Don't talk like that," he said, shaking his head, "I don't want that thing coming with us." <br/>"You expect me to leave her out here to die?!" I stepped forward, holding her in the door of the car out towards an irritated Johnny, "look at how small she is!" She mewed at him softly and I beamed as I noticed his expression change. <br/>"Ugh," he groaned, "fine, but if it bites you and you turn into a zombie I'm going to blow your head off." I quickly climbed in the truck, it looked fairly good for something that had been the apocalypse, aside from the side being all smashed in and dirty like it was. <br/>"Why wouldn't I want my best friend to shoot me in the head?" I smiled, letting her sit in my lap as I shut the door, "that's, like, the best way to go." <br/>"Literally, shut the fuck up," he told me, "and I'm not your best friend, I wouldn't even be stuck with you if it weren't for..." he trailed off, a pained look upon his face once more before he shook it off and moved the stick shift into reverse, "yeah... we'd better get goin' if we wanna have everything packed up before dark." <br/>I shoved the last milk crate into the bed of the truck, watching as Johnny strapped them all down before climbing out to the ground. Without any exchanged words, I closed the tailgate and we piled into the car once more.<br/>"I can't believe I let you keep that furry fucker," he complained as I picked the cat up from where it had sat on my seat.<br/>"You mean, 'ohh Jay, I'm so happy you're trying to save a tiny animal's life'," I mocked, "that's what you mean?" Johnny opened the glove compartment, finding stacks of CDs, pulling them all out, flipping through them one by one, shaking his head at me as he did. <br/>"I have a bad feeling about that thing, and I don't like it coming with us." <br/>"She has a name, you know," I told him.<br/>"Why the fuck would you-" <br/>"Ask me what her name is," I interrupted, scratching her head as she purred in my lap, before quieting my words with a slight smile, "ask what her name is..." <br/>"Fuck, okay," he looked up from the CDs, "what's her name?" <br/>"Her name is Professor Marshmallow!" I cheered, holding her arms up, moving her tiny paws along with the movement. Johnny looked at me, deadpan, for a second. <br/>"You're an idiot."<br/>"No, how am I an idiot?”<br/>"Jay," he sighed with a slight laugh, "how are you not an idiot?"<br/>"Uhh," I began, about to list off several reasons, but they, frankly, would have proven his point. <br/>"You flunked out of school," he said simply, looking back down to continue flipping through the discs, "would you rather listen to Elvis, David Bowie... I think this is Stone Temple Pilots, Beastie Boys, The B-52's, Everclear? God, this dude had terrible taste in music." <br/>"Hey!" I snapped, "I like Beastie Boys." He held the CD up to me, a dumbass look crossing his face as he did. <br/>"Really?" He asked, cocking an eyebrow, "you like 'Hello Nasty'?" <br/>"...well, yeah?" I spoke down, tearing my eyes from his, embarrassed with my answer when he glared back at me.<br/>"Elvis it is!" He shouted, tossing the rest of the albums into the floor below me. The album was his 'Greatest Hits' which didn't sound very promising. He slid the disc into the slot, pressing several buttons on the dashboard that didn't look like they belonged there. The radio started up; Burning Love. I only knew the song from a cheese commercial that I saw when I was younger, I'll admit it was catchy, but I hated it. <br/>Johnny paid no mind to the bodies in the streets, running over them recklessly as he went. Each thud back onto the ground made me queasy, but soon enough we had made it to open roads, and it was mostly smooth from then on out. This is where our story really begins: driving in an old country truck down old country roads, shotguns on our laps. A warm summer day that would be almost perfect if it weren’t for the catastrophe the world was enduring. A dystopian fiction, maybe. If my life were a movie, this is where the opening credits would start, this stupid song playing over it as our names all faded in and out, cross-screen. It felt like one of those cheesy 80’s movies my mom used to watch, but this is real, somehow, and my mom doesn’t exist anymore. <br/>I chomped on another one of those apple pies. I had only had a few but they were already getting worse and worse with each one I ate. Looking out upon the horizon, we had already reached the farmlands.<br/>“Where are we going?” I asked him, keeping my gaze out the window.<br/>“I want to get to Lodi or San Andreas, Danny lived ‘round there and if they’re not here, they’d be there if they’re even still alive,” he told me, keeping his eyes on the road.<br/>“You think they’d really just abandon us like that?” I asked sadly behind a mouthful of pie, petting the sleeping cat on my legs. <br/>“If Charlie was involved, yes, of course.” He grew tense, gripping the steering wheel harder. The two had been fighting for a few weeks before and Johnny had never distrusted anyone as much as he did Charlie, especially after they all left the three of us behind when the alarm went off. I almost didn’t miss Deuce anymore, either, but Johnny was dead set on finding everyone else, dead, undead, or alive. The tables had turned, but he was more in it for revenge, I felt. it was quiet between us for another long moment. But it wasn’t quiet for long. </p>
<p>A sharp pain in my arm startled me enough to toss the pie into the windshield and practically scream. Johnny snapped his head from the road to look to me in a panic. <br/>“Goddamnit, Jay!” he shouted, “I told you not to bring that fucker along!” the cat had its claws dug deep into my skin, the scratched drawing more blood than usual. I moved to pry it off my skin, all attempts proving useless, Johnny slowing the car to take his hands off the wheel. It looked back up to me with daunting and ghosted eyes, chilling my spine as it dug into my flesh more, the feeling more pained than it had ever been before. It wasn’t until the gun went off and my ears rang that I could even try to process any of what was happening. The small creature fell limp into my lap, its claws finally retracting, nearly every inch of my front-side covered in blood, my ears ringing so badly I couldn’t hear anything but my own heartbeat.<br/>“What the fuck?” I cried, turning to Johnny who looked like he had just seen a ghost, his face frozen as he held the shaking gun out, blood and tissue splattered all over the inside of the car. “What the fuck!” I shouted louder. My entire body ached. Johnny quickly threw the gun back down into his lap, swerving to the side of the road, stopping the car. He held his head in his hands as I stared, motionless and speechless, down to the kitten on my leg, blood soaking through my jeans.<br/>“oh my god,” Johnny’s voice broke as he refused to look up, “Oh my fucking god.”  </p>
<p>I held its cold, limp, body in my arms before setting it down gently into the small, kitten-sized hole Johnny had dug into the grass with nothing but a knife and a can of soup. He held his pistol close as he watched me gently push all the dirt back in over the animal, having to stop every now and then to let out a choked sob. The sun shone down a beautiful dark orange as it lowered on the skyline, nothing but flat land stretching out for miles.<br/>“If we die out here while you’re burying that thing, I’m going to be so mad at you,” Johnny sniffed, trying not to show how badly the event had affected him. He wiped at his face with the back of his hand.<br/>“You’re the one who fucking shot it!” I argued, standing up after piling up the last of the dirt. <br/>“You’re the one who took the fucking undead zombie cat!” He shouted back, “I wouldn’t have killed it if it hadn’t come after you like that!” <br/>“You didn’t know it was infected,” I said, glowering at the cat-grave. <br/>“It wouldn’t have done that to your arm,” he reasoned, pointing at my arm that still slowly dripped blood from behind the bandages I had wrapped it in to stifle the bleeding, “if it weren’t fucking infected.” He pulled a box of cigarettes out of his coat pocket along with a book of matches. He placed one in his lips, lighting it quickly and shaking out the match. “I can’t let you die.” With that he turned to walk back to the truck, leaving me there to stare at the ground. <br/>I crouched back down for only a second, bringing two fingers to my lips, kissing them softly before planting them in the soil, as I did for Tiger only weeks prior.<br/>“it’s okay, Marshy,” I spoke under my breath, patting the ground before bringing my hand back up to my side, “I know you didn’t mean it, bud.” My knees hurt as I stood back up and began to follow Johnny back to the car. I opened the door that leads into the bio-zone, taking a seat quickly. The number of chunks splattered on the windows made me sick, but the only thing worse, was the smell. Johnny followed soon after, neither of us exchanging any words as he started the car, soon mixing the dirtied air with cigarette ash. I kept my eyes trained on where the cat remained until we began to move, and it was completely out of my view.</p>
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